Okay, time for a controversial opinion (as if my
confliction over The Force Awakens wasn’t
bad enough): I think the Millennium
Falcon is kind of dumb-looking.
It’s all right, I guess. But for a ship of its supposed caliber and
speed, it’s kind of clunky-looking; shape-wise, it looks like a plate with some
shoehorns glued to it. No style, no
grace -- which is kind of the point, given its owners, but it’s still not what
I’d call ideal. Now, the X-Wing? Fine.
A-Wing? Cool. Y-Wing?
That’ll do. I know those aren’t
in the same class, but then I remember that the Star Destroyer exists and looks
cool (inasmuch as an imperial death machine deserves respect), so it’s just
like, “Yo, what happened, Han?” On the
other hand, the canon has also produced “beauties” like the B-Wing, so
their aerospace engineering is probably a little spotty.
I guess what I’m getting at here is that, like
I’ve said before, the past is not
sacrosanct. We don’t have to blindly
accept that everything from the good old days was perfect and exemplary,
because otherwise we end up in situations where “the things from the past are
always better than things from the present”.
By the same token, we
shouldn’t blindly reject everything because it’s from the past. Lessons can still be learned from it, and
elements (if not whole productions) are still appreciable. It’s all about balance, and giving credit
where credit’s due. Like and dislike
with reason and respect.
I just thought I’d throw that out there, in case
anyone reading this decided to hunt me down and pin my lifeless body to a
towering spire as a warning to their enemies.
So let’s move on…amidst all of the spoilers.
All right.
I’ve got one last story to tell, but I’m going to save it for later --
preferably near the end. Well, it’s not
so much a story as it is a random observation, but you get the idea. It’s kind of important, even if there’s no
ironclad lesson to take away from it. So
look forward to that; prep your diaphragms in advance.
In case it wasn’t clear (or if you didn’t click
that link before the jump, and thus intent on hurting my feelings), I’ll go
ahead and say it for posterity’s sake: no, I don’t think The Force Awakens is a bad movie, and there are good things about
it. It could’ve just coasted on the name
and the nostalgia, but it didn’t, and that’s worth celebrating. With that said, I can’t help but
feel…disappointed. I haven’t been sated
by the movie. I got some good tastes of
it, sure, but the proverbial meal didn’t fill me up. It should
have, and I can see why it filled up others, but I’m still hungry for
more. And I don’t want to wait two or
three years for seconds. I don’t see why
I should have to, either.
So is it just because of my anti-nostalgia
crusade? Am I just that biased against
anything that tries to mine the past?
Maybe. Probably, even, so I can
cement my heel turn and become THE ENEMY OF MANKIND. But on the other hand, there are still a lot
of holes that make the meal splatter against the floor.
Not to generalize, but if I had to guess, I’d say
I know what people are praising in TFA. The characters, obviously; the humor’s up
there too, along with the action and the visuals (I’m not so hung-up on CG vs.
practical effects, but no matter which one is used, TFA is still plenty competent).
If you’re someone with a deeper appreciation of storytelling -- i.e. a
nerd like me -- then you probably found some thematic heft that appeals to you
(heft that didn’t end up getting
broken). That’s cool.
But it’s the stuff that doesn’t get mentioned so
often that leaves me wanting. TFA is a simple, straightforward story,
but it might be too simplistic. This may be an example of J.J. Abram’s
signature style -- for good or ill -- at work here. The emotion of the scene is always on full
blast, but the logic can stall at any moment.
Or, alternatively, Abrams and his crew can bring out the fun in its
characters and plot, but it’s easy for his films to get tripped up on the
details. Some small, some large, but
plenty noticeable when they’re absent…or less than ideal.
So let me start with a question: why is BB-8 in
this movie?
NUMBER
ELEVEN: WARS (Possibly of the Star Variety)
So because this is an epic fantasy that just so
happens to be in space and can thus ignore all of its valuable tools the
moviemakers have to retread plot threads from the original trilogy (wow, I’m so
edgy and incisive), important information is stored inside of a droid and sent
to traverse a desert planet to escape the clutches of white-clad military
force. And sure, far be it from me to
suggest that the movie should start with trade negotiations or awkward
romantics. But there’s a tingle in my
brain that makes me feel like there was a missed opportunity.
Ever since I first saw him, I wondered how BB-8
would show his practicality. Granted
it’s not as if R2-D2 had the most practical design, either, but decades after
that droid’s construction, it’s almost as if the canon has tried to
technologically regress. BB-8 is smaller
than R2, he’s got no arms, and he needs someone to translate for him; if Finn
can’t understand what he’s saying, then we can assume that others can’t
understand him either, which could hamper a lot of circumstances. Setting that aside, how is a robot that uses
a ball as its sole means of propulsion practical?
We see BB-8 roll across a desert planet, and
throughout the movie he’s either filthy, or gets progressively dirtier. So what happens when the terrain he rolls
across gets stuck in his body and jams up or wears down his shell, or his
instruments? Even if they don’t,
wouldn’t his regularly-dirtying body force his owners to constantly wash
him? At least R2 could hide his
dirtiness, because he mostly rolled around on treads, or wheels, or whatever. Except for that one time.
But what’s more important is the role. BB-8 is tasked with carrying the map -- or
part of it, at least -- to the Resistance, after receiving it from an old
desert-dweller. All right, so I have to
ask: why did they need to put the information inside a droid? I get that Poe needed to grab the data from a
guy who probably didn’t have a machine to his name, but after that, I’m
stymied. Was there really no way for Poe
to transmit that data back to the Resistance?
The data more or less got stored on a flash drive, right? So he couldn’t use his X-Wing to send that
info where it needed to go? He and his
droid have to physically cart the mail back to base?
It’s true that the First Order starts breathing
down his neck and blows up his ship. But
then BB-8 gets into the Millennium Falcon alongside Finn and Rey -- and despite
its age, surely that has some means
of communication, right? Even if the
flash drive isn’t Falcon-compatible, the droid can still make a holographic
projection, and Finn could call out the coordinates to the Resistance once BB-8
opens a channel, right? So I guess the
overarching question here is this: why is it that a universal civilization
that’s nailed interstellar travel and light-speed movement doesn’t have the
capacity to talk with one another unless they’re within earshot? Wouldn’t that be the first thing on the
docket when crafting these ships, especially in case something goes wrong? Wouldn’t that be something to aspire towards
in the thirty years since the destruction of the second Death Star? This movie came out in 2015, so why is it
acting like it’s still 1977?
I know it’s not that big of a deal (because even for me, that was a pretty pissy
nitpick), but it kind of plays to one of my personal issues. The movie needed to have BB-8 roll around
with macguffin.png to serve the plot, but it didn’t have to be this way; the
crew could have geared the movie to start in a different way, with a tweaked
journey, so they didn’t have to play the me-too game. More to the point, they missed a golden
opportunity here. They could’ve taken
advantage of the setting to resolve one issue, and then have time to move onto
more important (and better) issues and events.
Except they didn’t. And this isn’t just a “they relied too much
on nostalgia!” complaint. With this new
sequel trilogy, it’s their mission to build up the world and show the world
what this fictional universe has to offer -- especially since you can’t get any
more canon than the seventh official movie.
But TFA skimps on that. It’s pretty much a given that we’ll see more
of this world eventually, but as it stands, there are some key world-building
elements that are MIA. And every missing
element presents a missed opportunity in the story -- to say nothing of crucial
details.
I have to parrot a lot of the sentiments I’ve seen
elsewhere: what is the First Order (besides Nazi stand-ins)? They’re supposed to be the remnants of the
Empire, but what are their principles?
What’s their primary mission? Why
do they have to be so ruthless that they’ll slaughter an entire village of
innocents? Sure, Supreme Leader Snoke is
playing puppeteer so he can wipe Luke and the other Jedi off the map
(presumably), but what’s the Order’s stake in the matter? What do they stand to gain? Is their ruthlessness in line with their
ideals? I mean, all of the Stormtroopers
we see onscreen are bipedal humanoids -- so if they really are space Nazis,
then does that mean they’re advocating the supremacy of humanoids over Wookies,
Ewoks, and Quermians like
Yarael Poof?
Also, how did the First Order manage to build not
only a third Death Star, but a Death Star that’s the size of a planet? Somebody should’ve noticed that, right? Sure, space is a big place, but it’s not as if
planets are undetectable; Galileo spotted Neptune in 1613 with a fraction of
the technology we have today, and now you’re telling me no one saw a gigantic
war machine being built? The only
explanation is that the Order converted an uninhabited planet into a colossal
gun, but that raises its own share of questions. How did they get the resources for it if
they’re the fractured remains of a group from decades ago?
How did they test its capabilities without
alerting anyone of their presence, given that it fires a giant fuck-off laser
that blows up several planets at once?
How did they get away with a single test run when it’s powered by
absorbing suns? What happens if
something goes wrong and they run out of suns within a feasible range of the
base? Why did you not incinerate the
Republic’s home planet in one go if you had access to a doomsday weapon? Or…did
you incinerate the Republic’s home planet?
Speaking of the Republic, what’s their deal? General Hux implies that there’s more to them
than just being the good guys, but was he actually telling the truth or spewing
rhetoric to get his boys fired up? How
much control do they exert over the universe?
How do they enforce order and the law?
Do they enforce order and the
law? How popular are they? How well-liked are they? How well-armed are they? I guess the implication is “not very”, if
their attack on Starkiller Base leaves half of their fleet -- or squadron, most
likely -- in shambles. So who’s the
underdog here? Or are they both of equal
strength? If that’s the case, then how
did either of them amass support?
The Republic must have law and official procedures
on its side, right? So that would mean
by default it’s in the right -- unless maybe it’s made some rulings and decrees
that haven’t gone over well with the public?
In which case, were those rulings and laws damning enough to drive
people in droves right into Snoke’s arms?
Is the First Order actually a bunch of separatists who couldn’t tolerate
the Republic’s breach of personal freedoms and fled to the comfort of the past,
as well as some hypothetical, easy-to-romanticize wild frontier of liberty (at
the expense of others, but bred from a delusional sense of independence and
belonging)?
…Who are these people?
NUMBER
TWELVE: The Infinitely Expanding Universe (and its Lack of Expansion)
I’ve heard people say that the lack of
world-building information was a safeguard against talking too much about
politics and junk, AKA one of the elements that sank the prequel trilogy. But it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing
situation; it’s possible to weave those details in with moderation, and with
visual and/or verbal storytelling to make this conflict feel as massive as it
should. Plus, I’ve heard that the
original three movies also skimped on the world-building, and pared down the
Empire and the Rebels to Bad Guys and Good Guys.
Okay, sooooooooooooo…again, do we have to redo
everything that we did back in 1977? Are
we not allowed to have a smidge more complexity in our movies, especially in
the face of uncertain times? Also,
saying that the old movies did it A) still doesn’t pardon the new movie, and B)
threatens to retroactively worsen the old movies. And as a corollary, you can’t say “it needs
to be simple for the kids” because this is a violent-ass movie featuring
stabbing, bodies flying everywhere, and a village being lined up for slaughter
within the first five minutes. Audiences
aren’t the fragile princes and princesses that some people take them for.
Credit where credit’s due: no one can fault this
movie for not having enough alien races.
And as obsessive as I am may seem am, I don’t need every
detail in the universe laid out before me in one go. I don’t need to know what this species is, or
what its culture is, or the biology of looking like some kind of insectoid
hellion. It’s an alien. It looks different from me. I got it.
But I do need explanation for
other matters, however brief it may be; those matters include details that
enhance our understanding of the story.
Backgrounds, motivations, objectives, and the like don’t have to be simplified
to “we’re the bad guys”.
Also, I know this veers into “asking Star Wars to stop being Star Wars” territory, but am I the only
one who felt like the environments were a little dry? Outside of Starkiller Base breaking apart,
the new planets don’t exactly offer a lot in the way of…well, let’s go with
presence. Chalk this up to me playing Xenoblade Chronicles X, but once you
look past the aliens in these scenes -- assuming there are any -- the settings
don’t have much in the way of visual splendor.
Primarily, there’s a desert planet, and a forest planet, and Starkiller
Base becomes a snowy planet. And what is
there to do with them? What is there to
see?
Yeah, the desert planet has scrapped Empire
vehicles and lots of sand to traverse, but…what else? I mean, The
Empire Strikes Back had a desperate situation where Luke got dragged away
by a yeti into an ice cave, and had to slash his way out. Then he had to brave the cold, and slip into
a tauntaun for warmth and hope for the best. It’s not a sequence that eats up the whole
movie, but it’s still a sequence -- something that establishes the harshness
and authority a planet could have. Even
if Jakku is borderline inhospitable, Finn still traverses it in due time
(mostly through scene changes) with little more than some extreme thirst and a
coating of sweat.
True, this sense of longing and wanting isn’t one
I had immediately in the theater -- and as a guy who’s historically struggled
with writing settings, not capitalizing on one isn’t the death knell I make it
out to be. But as the days and weeks
pass, I’m going to keep thinking about the movie. And I’m worried that the more I think about
it, the lower my opinion will go. And
you can thank my hyper-obsessive brain for that.
NUMBER
THIRTEEN: Don’t Think About the Movie Any More than You Have To
The movie clocks in at two hours and sixteen
minutes, but to its credit, you’d never be able to guess just by watching
it. TFA
moves fast. It moved fast for my first viewing, and moved
just as fast -- if not faster -- the second time around. The blistering pace lets Finn, Rey, and the
rest go from one point to another (and one planet to another) without a second
thought. It’s not what I’d call an
exhausting movie, because there are periods of downtime so audiences can catch
their breath. But there’s a downside to
the high-speed operations: the movie really has to strain to keep things going
so quickly.
The sheer number of coincidences is
astounding. Finn, Rey, and BB-8 just so
happen to hijack a fully-functional Millennium Falcon, then just so happen to
run into Han and Chewie within minutes of their escape, who just so happen to
have their freighter boarded by two rival bands of space thugs, and just so
happen to be dispatched by the Doom monsters
Han just so happens to be transporting. And Han just so happens to know that alien
woman Maz Kanata has the info and refuge they need, and she just so happens to
have Luke’s lightsaber locked away in a treasure chest (and purposely dodges
the question of where she got it from), which just so happens to call out to
Rey, who just so happens to be awakening to the power of the Force.
I mean…we’re all familiar with the scale of the universe, right? So the probability of these characters
meeting and these events transpiring has to be such an infinitesimally small
number that I would have to fill the rest of this post with zeroes to
accurately represent the odds.
It all comes down to whether you’re the sort to
prioritize the emotion of the scene, or the logic behind it. And in all fairness, the former is extremely important. It’s what makes the audience feel, and feel
excitement. Plus, there isn’t a single
movie out there that doesn’t have its foibles, flubs, and failures; there’s
always going to be an issue that the creator was blind to, but nitpicking
assholes the audience will pick out.
Fine. But that should happen with
repeat viewings, not within seconds of seeing the events unfold. Emotion can help you overlook those problems,
but they aren’t guaranteed to -- and when the emotion is missing from those
scenes -- even if they’re just connective tissue for the overall story -- then
it can create some problems.
I want to keep thinking about this movie long
after it leaves the theaters -- and if the chance pops up, I want to use it as
an example in other posts. And while
there are things I’ve taken away from it, there are other questions that don’t
have a good answer -- things that expose the cracks in the movie’s armor. I’m hesitant to do that thing I do, because that would imply this movie is an absolute
failure (and it’s not). But if TFA is going to stick to tradition, then
I guess I will, too. So let’s go ahead
and do this, with points in no particular order…with the proper music, of
course.
--Who the hell was that random Stormtrooper
lugging around a giant electro-tonfa? I
mean, yeah, he’s pretty cool, but why did he feel the need to fight Finn
one-on-one in close-range combat while casting off the rest of his
equipment? Why didn’t he just shoot him,
given that they were in the middle of a battle?
Is it because the crew wanted to have a cool melee fight, since Finn got
his hands on a lightsaber?
--Why was it a random Stormtrooper that had that
tonfa instead of Captain Phasma?
Wouldn’t it make more sense for her to go after Finn, as both the enemy
elite and someone that has a beef with our hero?
--What was the deal with Maz Kanata? I get that she was (at the very least) a
client Han met in his travels and line of work, but why did she have a huge statue
of herself and what might as well have been a castle? Why is she painted as some sort of big boss
when she barely exerts any perceivable authority? (And yes, I know that everyone stops cold
when she shouts Han’s name, but isn’t that more because the con-happy Han Solo
has entered the building?)
--Where did Maz get Luke’s lightsaber? Did he leave it with her before he left? Was she one of his last disciples? Was she a confidant? If the story behind it was so long that Maz
didn’t have time to explain why she didn’t have time to explain, then doesn’t
she need to have more complexity to her character, role, and screen time to
justify that story? Or is it just
because the writers hadn’t thought that far ahead yet?
--Why is Kylo Ren’s training incomplete? Why put him in a position of authority if
he’s unstable, untested, and unable to have full command of the powers he
wields? Did Snoke put him in that
position to draw out his frustration, and accelerate his fall to the Dark
Side? What would Snoke have done if Ren
killed Hux in a fit of rage, or slashed some vital instruments?
--Why is it that Ren can stop a laser shot that
comes from behind him, but he can’t stop a laser shot that comes toward him, in
spite of the Wookie yell that gives him a heads-up?
--As cool as the lightsaber fights in the movie
are, I have to ask: why don’t these people ever punch or kick each other? I know they’re at risk for losing limbs, but
they lock swords on multiple occasions with no benefit, right? Would it have been too much for a knee to the
gut, especially since Rey eventually does
kick Ren in the end?
--How does Starkiller Base hit anything with its
hyper death ray? Does the cannon swivel
on an equatorial axis? Does the whole
planet move? Is that safe for the Order
forces stationed there? Is the base able
to compensate for the positioning, rotation, and orbit of targeted
planets? If it takes light 8.3 minutes
to go from the sun to the Earth, then does that mean there’s also a brief grace
period between the base’s attack and the actual planetary destruction? So does that mean the movie has a secret cut
in the action in the interest of time?
--Did the good guys give Han a funeral? Qui-Gon Jinn got a funeral in The Phantom Menace, so surely a beloved
character with even greater importance to the canon would get the sendoff he
deserved, right? Surely there’s enough
time to show that off, isn’t there?
You’re not just going to cut to R2-D2 reactivating, right?
--Why did R2-D2 spring back to life? Is it because Rey got close to him? Why would it do that? Are droids sensitive to the Force? Did Luke program him that way? Is Rey secretly a technopath like I
not-so-secretly wanted? Why would R2
become borderline inoperable for so long?
--Why is the map to Luke in pieces? How did it break into pieces in the first
place? Did R2 crash while the Resistance
tried to download the map? Was the map
purposefully broken up to mess with people?
--Are the people in the Star Wars universe incapable of keeping records? It’s only been thirty years since the end of Return of the Jedi, so why do these
people act as if everything that happened in it is the stuff of myths and
legends? Did they never bother to
explain all of the events that transpired?
How is that possible, when virtually all of the key players are
present? How is that possible when one
of the key players became a general, itself following her stint as a princess,
an authority figure, and a potential Jedi in her own right?
--So does that mean that all of the events of the
previous movies are the stuff of myths and legends? What about people who are over the age of
thirty? What about family members of the
men and women who lost their lives in the line of duty? How do you start over or ignore all of that
in the face of overwhelming evidence?
How is it that a movie that banks so heavily on the past can’t be
bothered to accurately represent and build upon the past?
--No, but seriously -- who the hell was that random Stormtrooper lugging around a giant
electro-tonfa?
(Not gonna lie, I kind of want to be him.)
NUMBER
FOURTEEN: The Sarlacc Pit and the
Question of Escape
There’s probably more stuff than that, but I think
I covered most of the important ones (inasmuch as pissy nitpicking can be important) here and
elsewhere. And I’m not so concerned
about those points as I make it out to be; I may have gone into CinemaSins
mode, but even those guys readily admit that they enjoy the movies they rip
into. Also, they’re self-proclaimed
assholes…which is probably how I should start identifying myself from here on.
In any case, it’s time to move on to one of the
more salient points of this series of posts.
Like I said, I had some stories to tell.
And this is the last of them.
See, I happened to be on the lookout for reviews from a choice few,
MovieBob well among them. He
was positive about TFA, but
balanced and informative as well -- as expected. I also happened to take a look at the
comments section of his site, which revealed some interesting reactions. Here’s a notable one:
“I started
to tear up reading your review, more from relief it didn't suck than anything
else. Then I read the last line and I couldn't hold them back anymore. Things
have been so disappointing in a general sense the last few years, in media and
elsewhere. I was beginning to lose all hope anything could be good anymore. I
needed this to be good, no scratch that. Culturally WE in a larger sense needed
this to be good. To have a little hope. :End rambling.”
I’m not going to pretend like I know what the
person who wrote that comment is like -- besides being a dedicated Star Wars fan, maybe. But it raises an interesting question. The original trilogy is more than thirty
years old (A New Hope is pushing
forty), and its time in the cultural spotlight, at least in a direct sense, has
long since passed. Fans from all over
were burned by the prequel trilogy, and the hatred against them is palpable --
though there’s a part of me that at least feels sympathetic towards George
Lucas and the three movies. High hopes
were pinned on TFA, and for the most
part, those hopes were met. Probably
exceeded, in many cases. With all of
that in mind, here’s the question I have.
Why do we
need Star Wars to be good? Why do we need this one thing to be good?
Its cultural impact can’t be stressed enough. Its accessibility -- its simplicity, and its
back-to-basics style -- have long since been noted. Its potential is limitless, as an
incalculable number of products in the Expanded Universe and merchandise have
shown us. (I may or may not be the owner
of an animated Star Wars movie
starring R2 and 3PO). Star Wars is big, and powerful, and may
as well overshadow fiction in a way that can never be reproduced. But in this day and age, do we really need
it?
We’re not wanting for fictional stories these
days. It can come from anywhere, in any
form. We’ve got books, TV shows, movies,
comics, webcomics, web series, anime, manga, musicals, plays, and probably even
more than that. Stories are everywhere,
and as easy to access as turning on a cell phone. Were the entries in any given form of media
influenced by Star Wars? Sure, it’s possible. But at the basest, Star Wars just offered a starting point. Inspiration.
The spark, but only the spark; the creators went on to create their own
works, mixing the principles of the past with the ingenuity of the present for
the entertainment of the future.
Like I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of Kamen Rider. But do I need it to be good, and be a
presence in my life, always and forever?
Well, no. I wouldn’t mind that,
but it’s possible for me to see the kinks more and more. The franchise ranges from fine to stunningly awful when it comes to handling female characters. It’s more than possible for the fights to
blend into a haze of punches if they don’t have the proper stakes or spectacle. The franchise exists to shill merch, and
blatantly so; it’s to the point where having good stories is just a happy
coincidence. And beyond that, individual
installments have varying levels of quality.
Kamen Rider Drive is up there
as one of my favorites; as of writing, its follow-up Kamen Rider Ghost is just not as good. It’s not bad,
but there are some problems it needs to start sorting out -- and soon.
But will it be heartbreaking if KR falls apart from Ghost onwards? Yes and
no. It’d be a shame if the quality
dropped, but KR is not the only toku
series out there. I could change lanes
and become a Super Sentai fan at any
given moment. There’s also the Tomica Hero franchise, which basically
reimagines the Power Rangers as rescue workers -- and is kinda-sorta
amazing. There’s Garo, Ultraman, and more.
And there always will be more,
because there are an infinite number of stories that can be told.
By the same token, I don’t need Final Fantasy to be good. I want it
to be good, for sure (as a way to justify its existence and constant
exposure). But it’s possible for me to
move on without waiting for a return to form.
The Tales series is remarkably
consistent. I’ve had more than my share
of fun with the Baten Kaitos games. Atlus not only came through with Persona 3 and 4, but also served up the fantastic Devil Survivor games -- and now Persona
5 is on the way.
What I’m getting at here is that we don’t have to
pin all our hopes and expectations on one story. Okay, sure, “that one story” in this case is
one of the most influential pieces of fiction of all time. But there’s more out there. It’s a wide world, and that wide world
carries with it the imprints of Star Wars. If you need more Star Wars, you don’t have to sit around with your hands clasped in
prayer. You can find Star Wars with something as simple as a
YouTube search. You can find your
hope whenever you want -- as long as you’re willing to look.
So if you ask me?
We don’t need Star Wars to be good. It’d be nice, especially if we’re destined to
get more. But it spent the past decade
on the bleachers, and we were all fine regardless. It spent even more time on the bleachers in
the time between Return of the Jedi and
The Phantom Menace, and people lived
on anyway. They found new stories, and
new adventures, and new heroes -- because that’s the goal of every story. They
aim to give audiences new things to latch onto, so that they can continue to
find hope. And at its worst, The Force Awakens doesn’t do that. It doesn’t offer a new hope; it just offers A New Hope. It substitutes the prospects of a bold new
future for the things we’ve already seen.
As if that’s what matters. As if
we’ve hit our cultural peak, our zenith -- and all that’s left is to let the
Big Crunch carry us backward.
But when The
Force Awakens is at its best...
In a lot of ways, I find myself frustrated by this
movie. Disappointed, even. But there’s more to it than just
nostalgia-baiting. The pieces are there
for an incredible story, an adventure on its own terms without being shackled
to the past, or audience expectations, or some unspoken rules about what a Star Wars movie should be. The fact that one of the main characters is a
Stormtrooper, a member of a military force we were largely led to believe was
mindlessly ruthless and eternally expendable up to this point, is a testament
to that.
Characters create opportunities. Finn, Rey, Poe, Ren, and BB-8 all managed to
create those possibilities -- that road to the future that could potentially
make for the space adventures I’ve always wanted. That we’ve
always wanted. It’s annoying to know
that I’ll have to wait several years to see if that potential is fulfilled, but
think of it this way: the fact that I actually care enough to want to see that
potential -- and that I wrote so much, begging
for ways to improve what’s been in theaters -- stands for something
important. That’s more than I can say
about Jurassic World, as low a bar
that might be.
I didn’t hate The
Force Awakens when I saw it (either time), and I don’t hate it now. I’m annoyed by some of the choices made, and
I don’t agree with everything that played out. But there is stuff to like. There is quality. There is potential. There is hope. So I want this new series to capitalize on
what made it good, not just the assumption
of what people think is good. I
don’t want more mimicry, and I don’t want more rushing to try and placate
me. I just want the next movie -- and
the next, and the next, and the next -- to calm down, take a deep breath, and
do its act. Don’t be Kylo Ren,
movie. Be Finn. Be flawed, but be willing to overcome those
flaws. Be true to your heart. Be yourself.
So. What
else is there left to say?
Like I said, this isn’t a review. Nothing I ever do is a review, nor will it
be. There’s too much to go over, and the
points I make go beyond “should you buy in or not”. If you’re here expecting some kind of score, don’t.
All I can do is make my case -- in an absurd number of words -- and try
to find my own personal peace at heart.
Feel free to agree, or feel free to disagree. Your choice.
I won’t fault you, no matter what side of the line you fall on. And as such, I have to go with my heart of
hearts.
In the end, with the good and the bad stacked up,
I genuinely believe that Star Wars: The
Force Awakens is…okay. Which is why
I’d put it somewhere around HERE on my SmartChart™:
What, you expected otherwise from a heel? Please.
I’m a villain till the end.
And that’s okay.
And I hope you’re okay with it. Because we’re all gonna be okay. Because we’ve still got hope.
We always will.
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